What is Public Relations?

Before the fall semester began, I had absolutely no idea what the term Public Relations meant. The only time I had ever even heard the phrase was watching “Sex and the City.” Carrie Bradshaw’s best friend, Samantha Jones, was the CEO of her own PR firm. That was the extent of my knowledge. I had never really thought about that career or what that job would entail. To be perfectly honest, I only enrolled in COMM309: Intro to Public Relations, because another class that I wanted to get into was full. But when Professor Bartoo kindly explained to us on the first day of class what it actually meant to be in the PR field, I began to realize that even though I didn’t know it, I have been surrounded by PR my whole life. An advertisement on a billboard that I pass while driving, logging onto the University of Delaware website and seeing blurbs about Homecoming, or even a brochure that’s handed to me while walking to class, public relations is everywhere. However, I still had no idea what an actual professional in the PR field would do in a typical day. If you asked me to picture a PR consultant in their natural state, I could not have done so. One of the definitions of PR given to us from our textbook is from Glen T. Cameron, of the Missouri School of Journalism. Cameron defines the field as the “strategic management of competition and conflict for the benefit of one’s own organization-and when possible- also for the mutual benefit of the organization and its stakeholders or publics.” Again, still clueless.  It wasn’t until we had the assignment to interview an actual professional who works in PR that I finally began to see what working in PR meant.

The assignment was to find someone that works in PR, contact them on the phone, set up an interview which will take place in their office, and write a report about it. My group contacted and interviewed Doug Eppler, the Public Relations Manager for Tipton Communications in Newark, Delaware. Before going on the interview, I researched Mr. Eppler to find out more information about his background and his key responsibilities for Tipton Communications. I was shocked to find that although Doug had a good amount of experience in communication related fields, a large part of his background involved working in theatres and the tourism industry. How do theatres and tours prepare you for working at a PR firm? Well, surprisingly they relate quite a bit. Doug’s Linkedin page describes his tasks as the Tourism Development Specialist for Winterthur Museum & Country Estate. Some of Doug’s responsibilities were, “marketing the world-class, world-renowned museum to Motorcoach tour operators, group travel leaders, private group trip planners, social clubs, etc., serving as liaison to state and county tour and travel offices and coordinating group travel advertising,” to name a few.  In the actual interview, Doug explained how his background as the Toursim Development Specialist, prepared him for his current job at Tipton Communications. He may not have to give tours anymore, but similarly to how he had to get tourists interested in the estate, he now has to get target audiences interested in his client’s product or service, whatever they may be.

From both my research and interview I started to see that there is no uniform public relations consultant. Just like PR can be found in various ways around my world, PR officials can be found in different places and different environments. There’s political PR, sports PR, television PR, and more. It’s the diversity of this industry that has kept me extremely interested in possibly pursuing a career in this field.

Written by Emily Kitching.

           

Die-Hard Fan

As a red-blooded American male, sports have become an integral part of my life.  While this may just sound like every other guy you know who loves to watch sports, I assure you I am different.  So, when the NFL officially ended it’s 130 day lockout on July 25^th, I couldn’t have been happier.  The condensed offseason meant there would be a flurry of players switching teams in an unprecedented period of time.  Free agency would be cut down to two weeks, and the pre-season would start with minimal practices taking place.  This meant, as a football junkie, I would be following what would normally be a three month period of offseason activity in the span of two or three weeks.  My mind was spinning.  How would I keep up with all of these players changing teams, and how would I be able to fully comprehend the enormity of this lockout ending.  The answer? Twitter.

I had been a casual Twitter user up until the lockout ended, and it’s safe to say that I am no longer using the site casually.  What Twitter enabled me to do was to follow all of the football “insiders” from various news outlets who could provide me with instantaneous updates from the rumor mill about who was headed where, when, and for how much money.  While the casual football fans were stuck watching ESPN hoping a news flash would jump across the screen, I was getting those news flashes hours in advance from credible, plugged-in sources.  This is when I realized that being on Twitter is like having your very own news network, catered exactly to your interests.  However, Twitter has done more than provide me with news of the players on my fantasy football team.  Twitter has kept me culturally informed more than anything else.  I used to find myself on the outside looking in when it came to politics, economics, and current events, but not any longer. 

Don’t let people fool you. Twitter is not just a forum to vent or a place for people to post their sporadic thoughts.  Twitter eliminates the problem of the gatekeeper in the media by giving us unbounded access to any and all information we choose, with the simple click of a button.  Recently I have found myself following developments of the “Occupy Wall Street” protests on Twitter from different newspaper columnists around the country, as well as following political debates from the viewpoint of several different media outlets.  Simply put, Twitter is a great way to immerse yourself in the fast paced world we live in today, as it organizes the entire day’s events for you on one convenient feed. The beauty of Twitter is that by joining you become a member of the media, reporting news to anyone willing to listen. 

Written by Alec Nathan.

5 Differences Between Chinese and American Social Media Sites

QQ, RenRen and Micro Blog (also known as “Weibo”) are some of my favorite Chinese social media sites, although Americans have probably never heard of them.  They are closely tied to daily social networking for Chinese younger generations.  Instead of only visiting those sites in my comfort zone when I came to America, I decided to experience American social networking as well.  However, after using Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms. a question popped into my mind: Why do most Chinese social networking sites look so similar to each other while American sites are so different?  Here are a few reasons why:

1. Different Needs and Purposes: Because Chinese social media is booming but still not very advanced compared to American social media, Chinese online users, especially the younger generation, tend to seek out content mostly about entertainment.  Their ultimate purpose is simply to gain happiness and joy through these social networking sites.  Also, there are a variety of interesting applications listed in those sites, such as video games, radio stations, online live shows, and an online store for decorating their own blogs or Facebook pages.  There is even a system of “internet money” that users can buy virtual presents and gifts with, and people even have the ability to express their feelings with moving emoticons.  However, the relatively simple needs might not be satisfying to American online users who tend to absorb different types of content so as to achieve or meet their goals.  Examples of this include online job or internship searching and academic discussions.

2. “All in One” vs. “One-on-One”: This might be the most obvious difference between the two country’s social media sites.  The fundamental reason why QQ, Weibo, and RenRen look alike is because all of them contain similar functions and applications.  This means that even if you only open and constantly use one site, you still can be offered the same level of service such as watching video and listening to the radio stations. This is much more convenient.  Unlike the structure of Chinese sites, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and Linked-In have distinct characteristics, which appeal to certain types of people with certain needs.

3.Target Audience Varies Depending on Each Site: The 'all in one' model targets general online viewers, regardless of if their age or education level.  Everyone can obtain their own satisfaction through social media, whereas, the 'one-on-one' model gathers specific ranges of people sharing similar levels of social values and knowledge altogether in order to make progress and act in their best interest.

4. Distinct Mindsets Reflected by Cultures: One thing that RenRen has but Facebook does not, is a section showing the amount of online viewers that visit your personal page. Most individuals have a strong desire to share more interesting content to help increase the number of visitor hits. This is only more exemplified by the level system on RenRen, which teaches that with more friends a person’s “level” may increase, and those who are newcomers to the site have a much lower level of popularity.  The more attractive your webpage looks like, the higher amount of “fans” you will get, which is a common phenomenon showing how important Chinese people care about how others think about them more than caring about themselves.  Although this is a universal aspect to modern culture, it may be stronger in Chinese culture, due to the sense of collectivism as opposed to individualism, where every single person goes their own way without paying too much attention on other peoples’ expectations.

5. The Extent of Awareness of Using Social Media to Brand Yourself: After participating in the PRSSA-UD Twitter Chat Skill Slam last week, I was surprised by the amount of students eager to become PR pros in the future and that used Twitter to look for internship opportunities.  I was also truly inspired by how sophisticated they present themselves by writing blogs including their own portfolio and resume. In general, Chinese college students are not aware how they can use social networks to build their careers while American students really take advantage of these online tools.

Written by Kathy Hu.

Below are my personal web pages from each Chinese social media site that I mentioned above.  Get a sense of how Chinese popular social media sites look and how Chinese and American social media differ, so that they can learn from each other:

Renren: http://www.renren.com/profile.do?id=277792718

Weibo: http://www.weibo.com/2163593131/profile?topnav=1

My Earthquake Encounter with Twitter

The advent of Twitter never appealed to me, as I have always been a complete addict of Facebook. To be honest, it was (wrongly) advertised to me as “just Facebook statuses” and “pretty much pointless.” I believed them. I truly did not need a Twitter to be interconnected with my friends. But then a little thing called peer pressure happened. Because my friends all started getting Twitter accounts, naturally I did not want to feel left out. I wanted to be trendy and up-to-date on all the latest fads and fashions of my generation. I caved in and made an account, but I was still not convinced that Twitter had any sort of meaning for my social life. I was so unenthusiastic about it at first that my first tweet was a simple phrase: “first tweet.” Original, right?

BOOM. The East Coast Earthquake of 2011 hits on August 23^rd. What was a scary and intense moment for most people turned out to be a very calm moment for me. Two of my co-workers and I were outside, running a few errands for work. Suddenly, my sister texted me saying there was an earthquake in State College, PA. I had no idea what she was talking about. We got back to the office, and heard the stories from our other colleagues who had felt it. No one had heard much news about the scope of the quake.

I decided to log onto Twitter to see what my friends’ experiences had been. For some reason, I noticed something that I hadn’t really paid much attention to on Twitter before the quake. In the “Trends” section on the lower right side of my account, “earthquake”, “a 5.9”, and “Virginia” were showing up. For anyone who does not have a Twitter account, trends are essentially the most common phrases or words that Twitter users are posting in their tweets. Twitter users can customize their accounts to show worldwide trends, or just the trends in one specific country. When a Twitter user clicks on a trend, it brings up a page that identifies all of the people using that phrase in their tweets (granted their tweets are not protected). I clicked on “#earthquake”, and found that a variety of news organizations had used this hashtag in their posting. In that same posting, many of them also included an article detailing what exactly happened.

And that is how I got all of the information of what happened. I learned where the epicenter was, how large the earthquake was, the damages (minimal, of course), and the area which it affected. This was how I got my news.  Just through a scanning of the Trends on a social media site. I was amazed at the fact that I could learn so much about what happened without even having to turn on the TV.

Identifying Public Opinion and Key Publics

As a public relations student and future professional, I find the implications of the “Trends” feature on Twitter astounding.  For one thing, it can easily help a PR professional identify public opinion. PR professionals need to be able to identify public opinion on certain issues to better help their organization or client adapt to the public. The “Trends” feature allows PR professionals to see what people are talking about in a quick and efficient manner. This can be very beneficial to a PR professional because by clicking on the trend, they can see who is tweeting about an issue. The tweets that show up may disclose information that includes an opinion about the issue at hand. This can identify public opinion, or can help you to indentify a specific public that your organization wants you to target (based on their thoughts that have been tweeted). The beauty of the “Trends” feature is that although it identifies a commonly used phrase or word, there could be a multitude of different opinions surrounding the issue that the trend refers to. A PR professional could find a variety of different opinions regarding a certain issue by scanning just one trend page.

Opinion Leaders

People who have specific opinions on an issue may serve as opinion leaders, who will, in turn, influence their followers. Since many of the followers of the opinion leaders may not have Twitter accounts, it is crucial that a PR professional reach out to the opinion leaders. Once this is done, the opinion leaders can influence their followers. Now, this is not to say that all the followers will not have Twitters; in this case, PR professionals can identify specific followers and reach out to them directly. This is also not to say that every opinion leader has a Twitter account. But many people who post strong opinions about an issue will want their followers on Twitter to see this and be influenced by the content.

What started out as a pretty pointless forum that I used to post things about my day-to-day life became a tool that I will use as professional in the public relations field. The use of social media in the workplace environment is very interesting and becoming very important. Even though I didn’t feel the earthquake itself, I was rocked by the amazing qualities and usefulness that Twitter has for the professional world.

Written by Bobby Schrader.

Social Media on the Front Lines of War

Non-governmental organizations Resolve (Washington D.C.) and Invisible Children (California) have teamed up by using social media tools to bring Africa’s longest-running war close to home.

For the past 25 years, a brutal war in central Africa has been almost “invisible” to the Western world. The rebel group, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), has been kidnapping tens of thousands of children (as young as 5 years old) in Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, and the Central African Republic to build up their regime. These innocent children are forced to fight and kill, and no attempts to stop the injustice had been made until Invisible Children and Resolve stepped in in 2003 to raise awareness and advocate for change. This past spring, Invisible Children raised $1,778,630 for early warning radio networks in Central Africa to help protect the civilians. Every dollar given to this campaign was raised solely through the use of sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr- proving just how powerful and  resourceful social media can be.

Last week, Invisible Children and Resolve unveiled what is perhaps their biggest social media project to date- The LRA Crisis Tracker. This tool tracks and plots data warning of future LRA attacks, as well as updates when attacks and abductions have been made. It not only brings awareness of the LRA to the Western world, but to the community in central Africa as well. These real-time updates are streamed on Twitter (@CrisisTracker) as well as on LRAcrisistracker.com. The public can also download maps and reports for the most detailed analysis of the LRA attacks. The LRA Crisis Tracker is a huge breakthrough in making the information and data of the war readily available to the worldwide public. Because this war is not on the general media’s agenda, social media networks are shedding light on an otherwise invisible humanitarian crisis. This case is just another example of how social media is making global change possible.

To learn more about the LRA Crisis Tracker and receive real-time updates from the front lines of the war zone, follow @CrisisTracker on Twitter or visit www.lracrisistracker.com. You can also view the LRA Crisis Tracker press packet for more information: http://www.lracrisistracker.com/sites/default/files/CT_presspacket.pdf.

Written by Charlotte Strazdus.